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XTC - 1980-02-21 - Whisky A Go Go, West Hollywood, CA (JEMS 2020 Transfer)

by: XTC

Topics: XTC live 1980, XTC 1980, XTC Live

XTC

The Whisky

West Hollywood, CA

February 21, 1980

RG Master via JEMS

New Wave LA Series Vol. Two

Recording equipment: unknown mics and recorder

JEMS 2020 Transfer: RG Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX- 505 (azimuth adjustment) > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 capture > iZotope RX6 > iZotope Ozone 6 > Sound Forge > CD Wave > ffmpeg

01 Beatown

02 Real by Reel

03 When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty

04 Life Begins at the Hop

05 The Rhythm

06 Meccanic Dancing

07 Scissor Man

08 Ten Feet Tall

09 Helicopter

10 This Is Pop

11 Battery Brides (Andy Paints Brian)

12 Crowded Room

13 Complicated Game

14 Making Plans for Nigel

15 Outside World

16 Dance Band

17 Statue of Liberty (cuts out)

JEMS is pleased to inaugurate a new series of historic recordings made by our longtime friend and diehard music collector RG. He was on the scene in LA as a teenager, began recording shows in 1977 and continued on well into the 2000s. Our series will focus on tapes he made between 1977 and 1987.

What sort of music was he into? Well, one simple way to put it is KROQ music, meaning the bands that LA’s “world famous” new wave radio station was playing were the bands he saw and recorded. First wave if you will, with forays into indie and punk(ish) artists. The early years are dominated by UK artists breaking in the US. Over time his work expands to US bands in the second wave. Some of the artists RG taped include:

Siouxsie & the Banshees

Madness

The Specials

OMD

The Fall

The Damned

Public Image Limited

John Cale

Magazine

The Buzzcocks

Orange Juice

Wreckless Eric

The Cramps

Johnny Thunders

Talking Heads

Iggy Pop

XTC

The Jam

The Only Ones

The Undertones

Boomtown Rats

The Birthday Party

The Penetrators

The Bluebells

Athletico Spizz ’80

Later on he caught The Smiths, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, The Replacements and many more.

RG used good, not Millard-level recording gear, which means his tapes are mostly solid and listenable, with the occasional very good one and also sorta crappy one. What makes his tapes compelling is that RG was recording in a particularly vital window of time. In many instances these were the first or second times these acts played Los Angeles. Some never did proper US tours, only playing select dates in key markets like LA or NYC. Also, for many of these gigs, RG was the only taper. He grabbed a few local radio broadcasts along the way, too.

Because these shows were almost exclusively at clubs like The Whisky and The Roxy, the sets are generally short, 45 to 60 minutes because that's what you did at The Whisky. On occasion, RG would copy his own masters to save tape and we have done our best to distinguish what’s a true master and what’s a first generation copy. If there’s a doubt, we will note it. Regardless, the series will offer the lowest generation copies available of his recordings, digitized directly for the first time from RG’s tapes which had been stored in boxes for the last 15+ years.

The second offering in our series is XTC at the famed Whisky in West Hollywood, on tour in support of Drums and Wires, released the previous August. The band only played a handful of dates in the US the previous year, but did two runs in 1980, early and late in the year. The first included five shows at the Whisky. This night they played early and late shows, this is the February 21 early set.

It would appear this recording is uncirculated and that there is no other recording of XTC from this show. RG’s capture is again quite listenable with a little bit of low end distortion but otherwise easy to tune into. Samples provided. The band’s best known songs make appearances here, including “Life Begins at the Hop,” “This Is Pop” and the hit from the new album, “Making Plans for Nigel.”

Huge thanks to RG for letting JEMS dig into his tape boxes and pull out the assets for this series. He witnessed some amazing LA music history. Shoutout as well to cpscps who volunteered to handle post-production on our series which is a huge help to us and makes it possible to get more music in your hands.

BK for JEMS